It Was Two Different Times of the Day, But in the Same Place’: Coast Salish High School Experience in the 1970s
- High school is especially hard for those of Aboriginal descent
- Many Aboriginal students didn’t even graduate high school
- Residential schools have affected the way the Aboriginal students learn today, and will continue to learn
- Residential school is the same in Canada as boarding school is in the United States of America
- Many Aboriginal students faced much racism while in high school
- For many of the modern Aboriginal students going to public high school as worse than being at the Residential schools
- White’s demanded that their culture be taught in high schools and completely disgarded the fact that there was another culture in the school systems
- Bolt Decision
- The school teachers that were also fishers resented the other teachers that were benefiting from the Bolt decision
- The teachers didn’t understand that these children hadn’t had the ability to own things that they had, so when they were failing basic intelligence tests they could understand why
- Many Lummi homes lacked plumbing and electricity
- There was no transportation to get the children places
- They played sports although they couldn’t afford the basic equipment to play: ie. Shoes, equipment, clothes
- Long-house healing process
- It was hard for the students to come back after they had taken the traditional training
- Increase in spiritual dancing and celebrations
A New Understand of Things Indian”: George Raley’s Negotiation of the Residential School Experience.
- Many felt Coqualeetza was one of the finer residential schools for Native children
- The Raley’s wanted to study the Aboriginal people, he believed that they should be allowed to have their own religion and their own culture and that the White people should not have the right to assimilate people
- Raley rejected the notion that Native people were any less than the White’s
- The girl’s sitting rooms and boy’s bed rooms where Raley’s way of trying to introduce a bit of the home spirit into Coqualeetza
- Raley paid for music lessons, paid for trips home, and paid for summer camps for the students to attend
- Raley’s belief that the white man in general, and the residential school system in particular, had a responsibility to provide Native people with useful skills that would allow them to independent, dignified lives.
- Raley believed that Native arts and handicrafts would link the students back with their heritage
- “His new understanding of everything Indian”
- It is important to look into all residential schools because not all of the schools were the same, so before making biased opinions on these schools you must take a more historical look into the history of the residential schools